


Plus Tax

by Tierfal



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Retail, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Pointless, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-08
Updated: 2015-02-08
Packaged: 2018-03-11 05:25:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3315809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tierfal/pseuds/Tierfal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ed is having a crappy, crappy night at his crappy, crappy Walgreens job.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Plus Tax

**Author's Note:**

> I was reading Not Always Right because I wasn't using that faith in humanity anyway, and then… [this one](http://notalwaysright.com/a-stupid-call-by-any-metric/41633)… just… inspired this fic. And I was powerless to stop it. FML.
> 
> If it reeks of Loud and Clear!Ed's narrative voice, I'm sure that is a coincidence; it's not like I've written 30,000 words of that stupid fic in the last month or anything… -___-''
> 
> P.S. Sorry that I never, ever, ever edit properly. ;____; If I did, I'd probably hate my fic so much I'd never post it at all, so I figure this is the lesser of the evils?

Ed has been in this godforsaken store covering other people’s shifts on his usual day off for nine hours and forty-five minutes when the guy comes up to the counter.

Ed knows him—he’s in and out once every week or two.  He buys a lot of birthday cards and cleaning supplies; sometimes painkillers and contact lens solution and stuff.  One time he dropped a huge assortment of Disney Princess party shit on the counter and watched in a long-suffering sort of way as the total on the credit card machine rose steadily until it reached a semi-astronomical sum.

He never causes any trouble or bitches about any coupons or starts any shit—just answers the mandated small-talk questions in a very calm, smooth voice, says “Thank you” at the end, and goes on his merry way.  The only remarkable thing about him, really, is that he seems like the kind of person to whom awkwardness is such a foreign concept that he wouldn’t recognize it if it fell into him, accidentally left suggestive bruises, and tripped over its tongue in an attempt to apologize.

…okay, so there are two remarkable things.  The other is that this guy is, without a doubt, the single most attractive person Ed has ever _seen_.

It’s not just that he’s got a nice face—which he does, like, holy _shit_.  It’s… everything.  It’s something Hollywood should take a goddamn lesson from, because he’s mesmerizing as hell.  It’s the way he carries himself, and the way he moves, and how graceful his hands are; it’s the fact that his face is all the nicer because the expressions on it are so _complicated_.  It’s the way his eyebrows never stop moving; it’s the depth of his eyes and the subtle nuances of the curves of his different smiles and the way his throat undulates gently when he swallows.  It’s the breadth of his shoulders and the ease of his stride and the angle of his head and his hips when he stands still.

And his _voice_.  Goddamn motherfucking _hell_.

Point is, this guy is sex on really great legs, and Ed’s been trapped in retail cashier purgatory for-fucking- _ever_ , and what happens is really not his fault.

What happens is that the guy steps up to the register.  Ed says “Hi, welcome to Walgreens.”  The guy puts a box of condoms on the countertop, and—on autopilot, _autopilot_ , JesusHChristohGod—Ed follows up with, “Having a good night?”

And then Ed promptly turns the color of a fucking firetruck at a stoplight at sunset.

Normally, Ed is so fucking 120% _over_ every single product that they sell in this entire fucking store that he’s way past the point of judging people for their purchases, but—well, shit.  It’s not his fault either that the thought of this gorgeous bastard _having sex_ is just a tad more than Ed can handle inside the bounds of the whole bored-as-shit-customer-service-slave gig.

The guy grins, and he is just _so fucking hot_ that the unfair universe shouldn’t even be able to contain him.

“I know you hear this every single time,” he says, “but I swear on everything that’s holy that these are actually for a friend.”

It’s almost eight o’clock, and the store is desolately empty, and Rosé just went to the back to go do some stock checks so that she wouldn’t die of sheer ennui, and there is no one to save Ed from a conversational cataclysm of his own making.

Also, the guy bought a bottle of fucking whiskey—who buys fucking _whiskey_ at fucking _Walgreens_?—and a pack of kitchen sponges and a bunch of multivitamins and a packet of those little cleany-cloths for glasses and a Godiva chocolates assortment.

Ed would love to see him in glasses.  If he wears contacts, he must have glasses at home, right?  Probably?  What shape would compliment his face?  He’d care about that sort of crap.  He’s all… put-together.  And shit.

“Honestly,” the guy is saying, but it’s way too calm to be defensive.  He doesn’t care overmuch whether Ed believes him or not, which makes the whole excuse thing all the more convincing.  “His daughter’s going to be at Girl Scout camp all weekend, so it’s essentially the first time he and his wife will have a couple nights alone in the past seven years, and he begged me to pick him up a couple things before he gets back from dropping his daughter off.”  He grins—a different grin, a _cheesy_ grin.  “But the booze is for me.”

“Whoever it’s for,” Ed says, fighting an invisible war to keep his voice level, “I’m gonna need to see your ID.”

“That’s flattering,” the guy says.  The last thing in his basket is a card that says _CONGRATULATIONS!_ on the front and _…on the sex_ inside—why the fuck do they even sell that?—and then he reaches into his pocket for his wallet.  “How’s your night going?”

“It’s going,” Ed says.  He steamrolls his own urge to hesitate as he reaches for the condom box and scans it.  “In another ten minutes, I can finally get off.”

…f… _uck_.

“My shift,” he says, hearing his voice rise, powerless to stop it.  “I get off—my shift.  I’ve been here since ten this morning; I—” Can’t even swear in front of a customer to let off the steam; he may not survive this.  “I—”

“Good Lord,” the guy says, in a tone with no notable implication of _You are a total freaking moron_.  “That long?”  He holds out his driver’s license and tips his head towards the whiskey.  “You might need this more than I do.”

“It’s fine,” Ed says.  It is not fine.  The _guy_ is fucking fine, though; sweet baby Jesus; concerned confusion is a good fucking look on him.  Why is this happening?  Was Ed a bad person in a previous incarnation, or what?  “Just… payin’ for school, whatever.”

The guy’s name is Roy Ichiro Mustang, and he is definitely not underage.  He lives, like, three blocks away, which at least explains why he comes so often.

…comes… here.  To the store.  To buy things.  Fuck.  _Fuck_.

Ed’s whole fucking face is scarlet again as he hands the card back.  Roy Mustang’s fingertips brush Ed’s, and those fucking eyebrows arch up just _slightly_ , and the eyes sharpen, and this is really _not okay_.

“Thank you,” Roy Mustang says about the license; and “That’s rough,” apparently about the school thing.

Ed shrugs.  Scans.  Swallows a lot of things.

…a lot of _words_ , not just—things.  Not—other things.  Fucking… _shit_ , man.

“It’s okay,” he says.

“Here,” Roy Mustang says.  He reaches down to the impulse-buy shelf right underneath the counter and puts a chocolate bar on top of the sponges Ed was about to scan.  “That’s for you.”

Ed’s hands seem to have ceased to function.  “I—dunno—I mean, thank you, but—I dunno if I can accept that.”

“You’re off in ten minutes, right?” Roy Mustang says.

Ed nods, dumbly.  Like a doll.  Or a… dumb thing.

“Then I’ll wait,” Roy Mustang says.  “It can’t possibly be against company policy for me to give it to you outside.”

Ed is a total freaking moron whether this guy knows it or not.  He tries to freeze his stupid face and ends up grinning shyly anyway.  “You—don’t have to do that.  You really don’t.”

Roy Mustang smiles back, and Ed’s knees dissolve into cartilage soup.  “I don’t mind at all.”

Ed’s heart is beating in his ears, which is probably not a good sign, since his ears are fairly distant from his chest, which is where his heart should prefer to hang out, anatomically speaking.  “Well—okay.  Um.”  Where the fuck is he even standing right now?  The world around him seems kind of—fuzzy.  Fuzzy and pale and fading at the edges, like a photo that didn’t develop right.  Which he knows a lot about, because their machine at the photo station totally blows.  “You, um—do you have a rewards card?”

“Yes,” Roy Mustang says.  He gestures to the keypad.  “Can I put in my number?”

 _Don’t watch him, Edward Elric,_ Ed thinks at himself furiously as he nods.  _Don’t you_ dare _watch him and memorize his fucking phone number based off of what he puts i—shit, too late._

He tries to clear his throat.  “Did you need a bag for ten cents?”

Roy Mustang considers the array of items strewn across the countertop.  “I suppose I probably shouldn’t just toss a box of condoms in my passenger seat and then hurl them at his door from the front walk, so… yes, I think I’d better.  Thank you.”

If Ed just keeps breathing, he’ll get through this, right?  “Sure thing.”  He taps through the last few buttons.  “Okay, your total’s eighty-one forty-eight.”

“Lovely,” Roy Mustang says, and he swipes his card.

Ed puts everything in the bag while Roy makes navigating the screen prompts with the crappy-ass demon-pen look easy, which it is definitively not.  He even donates the dollar to breast cancer research.  _Nobody_ does that.  Then he signs, and his receipt prints, and Ed pushes the bag gingerly towards him and holds out the receipt and the requisite coupon.

“Thank you for shopping at Walgreens,” he says.

Roy Mustang smiles again, and Ed’s spine disintegrates.  “Thank _you_.”

When the doors shut behind him, Ed starts straightening the little boxes of Nicorette gum on the shelves in a desperate attempt to kill the last eight minutes of this unholily long fucking stint in drugstore hell.

Roy Mustang— _Roy Mustang_ —and his stupidly memorable telephone number are going to forget.  Ed’s already accepted that—and it’s okay.  Really.  Roy’s going to get in his car and drive off sorta-smiling, and that’s good; and then he’s going to drop off his friend’s contraceptives and troll-card, and then he’s going to get home and start to unpack the rest of the bag and find the chocolate bar in it.  And maybe he’ll laugh a little, or sigh, or shake his head slightly— _Oops, gosh darn_.  Maybe he’ll even regret it for half a second.  But then he’ll get on with his life, like they all fucking have to do, and by the next time he walks in here, he’ll probably have forgotten that it should be awkward, and he’ll ask Ed where the eyedrops are, and…

And when Ed finally escapes, there is a distinctly Roy-Mustang-shaped shadow leaning against one of the pillars in front of the store.

Ed stops short.  He can’t help it.

…no.  No, just kidding, he stops _tall_.  Ridiculously tall.  Totally normal-sized, and fuck those top fucking shelves that are made for giants or ogres or whatever, which he has to drag a step-stool over to check stock on, and…

And Roy is smiling at him.

“Hi,” Ed says helplessly.  “I, um.  I figured you’d forget.”

Or that it had all been a complicated little manipulation game by a compulsive liar; or that it wouldn’t be worth hanging around for the extra five minutes while Ed went to the back room and packed up his shit; or that he’d change his mind about waiting for the likes of fucking Ed Elric, chain drugstore employee not-so-extraordinaire.

“This is important,” Roy says, which makes about zero sense, but then he’s fishing in the bag for the chocolate.

“Aren’t you gonna be late to your friend’s place?” Ed asks.

Roy’s holding out the candy.  Ed’s hand rises and takes it, and their fingertips touch again, and _fuck_ his _life_ , he just—

It’s been a long fucking time since anybody—since he _let_ anybody—touch him with… intent.  Touch him at all, really.  And it sucks.  It leaves you feeling fucking empty and fucking cold, and then just the slightest graze of somebody else’s skin reminds you how alone you are, and…

“I texted him to tell him that I’d need a few extra minutes,” Roy says.  “Evidently he’s stuck in traffic anyway, so it worked out fine.”

Ed has the chocolate in his hand.  Mission accomplished or whatever.  So why isn’t Roy just… leaving?  Isn’t that the point?

He tightens his grip on it, remembers in due time that chocolate has a tendency to melt, and shoves it into his bag instead.

“Well,” he manages, “I—thanks.  That was—really cool of you.  I mean that.”

“Not at all,” Roy says.  He just keeps—smiling.  Fuck.  Doesn’t he know what that _does_ to people?  “Could I… get you a coffee sometime?”

Ed blinks at him for what feels like a really, really long time.

He can’t…

Words.  He can’t words.  He can’t _anything_.

Roy’s smile wavers, tilts faintly sardonic, and then fades.  “I—sorry.  I’m sorry.  Never mind.  I thought—never mind.”  He tightens his grip on the handles of the bag and then puts on a different smile—a smile like a sliver of glass.  “Have a nice ni—”

“You mean like a date?” Ed says.

Roy’s face is doing a weird thing where everything is absolutely still except his eyes, which are moving twice as fast—darting to the empty parking lot, to the dull streetlights, to the banner over the automatic door championing their free flu shots.  “Well—”

“Why the hell would you want to do that?” Ed asks.  “You’re—a ten.  Like, a ten and a half.  Out of ten.  Which isn’t even mathematically feasible.  And I’m, like, a two.”

On the upside, that seems to startle Roy right the fuck out of the bizarre mask-face thing.  On the downside, his bewilderment has a funny sort of almost offended-ness to it.

“I beg your pardon,” Roy says.  “You’re a _twelve_.”

“Like fuck I am,” Ed says.

Roy stares at him.

Ed stares back.

“Coffee?” Roy asks.

“Fuck, yeah,” Ed says.

“Sunday?”

“Awesome.”

“There’s a great place downtown,” Roy says.  “Right next to the Apple store.  Ten-thirty sound all right?”

“Ten-thirty sounds fucking excellent,” Ed says.

They stand there, and the staring contest turns into a smiling contest, and what the _fuck_ is going _on_?  Ed… Ed’s life doesn’t… work… like this.  It doesn’t do happy coincidences.  It doesn’t really do _happy_ , most of the time.

“Are you for real?” he asks.

Roy pats at his chest with one hand, looking down at himself.  “To the best of my knowledge, yes.”

“Jesus,” Ed says.

Roy winks at him.  “I wouldn’t go that far.”

Ed can’t help snickering, and Roy grins, and—

And holy hot damn, sometimes bad days turn out good.


End file.
